Mayor trying to save Port Wentworth Post Office from closure

PORT WENTWORTH, GA (WTOC) - The U.S. Postal Service, citing an "extraordinary decline in mail volume" made a decision last month to close 300 post offices, including the Port Wentworth branch.

The community is just now finding out about the closing.

Mayor Glenn "Pig" Jones says he received a letter on Tuesday stating the office will close on February 28th. It's news no one wanted delivered.

Susie Weber found out when she dropped off her mail and saw the letter on the doors of the post office.

"Surpised. I didn't know about it," Weber said.

Weber, and anyone else going in, learned the post office will be closing for good.

"I don't like that very much because I like to come right up the street to go to the post office," she said.

"Just the convenience of having the post office there, it will be hard on a lot of people," Mayor Jones told WTOC.

Jones says since mid 2009, the location has been facing possible closure by the U.S. Postal Service.

"They claim they are losing money. That's the situation we're in," he said.

Tuesday afternoon, the mayor received the same letter in the mail, confirming those rumors. It's a letter he'd like to return to sender.

"People of Port Wentworth need their own post office. We are a growing leaps and bounds and on the north end of the city," he said.

As of February 28, the post office will be closed. From then on, everyone in Port Wentworth who uses the post office will have to drive down to Garden City and use the post office on Augusta Road.

Jones says he's not so sure thats a great idea.

"It just don't make sense. Garden City is growing just like Port Wentworth and now all the businesses have to use that little post office," he said.

Jones isn't going to let the post office go down without one more fight.

"I'm going after the legislators one more time to ask them for help and beg the U.S. Postal Service to leave it open," he said.

"I hope they change their mind," Weber said. "Having it by our house is convenient instead of having to go to Garden City or out to Rincon."

The location has one employee working there at any given time. The workers will be reassigned to a new post office location.

Mayor Jones says he already has calls into representative Ann Purcell and Lester Jackson, hoping for support to try and keep this post office open. He says he knows it's a long shot, but he wants to at least try.